May 9, 1999
Web posted at: 6:24 a.m. EDT (1024 GMT)

HAVANA (CNN) -- Three dissident journalists were in jail Sunday, after Cuban authorities found them guilty of "disrespect" towards officials, including President Fidel Castro.

The reporters, who include disillusioned former state journalists and opposition activists, send their work abroad for publication, mainly via the Internet.

The dissident agency Cuba Press said Manuel Castellanos, 41, Leonardo Gonzalez, 24, and Roberto Rodriguez, 27, were convicted in a court in the eastern province of Holguin.

Castellanos, a Cuba Press reporter, received a sentence of two years and seven months' imprisonment for showing "disrespect" towards Castro and the Cuban police, the report said.

Gonzalez, who works for another dissident news agency Santiago Press, was given one year and four months in jail, while Rodriguez received one year and five months. Cuba Press did not say where Rodriguez worked.

The agency added that various relatives of the defendants were rounded up and temporarily detained during the trial, presumably to prevent disturbances. They were later freed.

The Cuba Press report, issued via the Internet, could not be immediately confirmed with relatives or Cuban officials.

Cuba Press is the largest of various, self-styled "independent" news agencies on the communist-run Caribbean island, which employ around 40 reporters and work without official authorization outside the state-controlled media.

The Castro government labels the independent journalists as "mercenaries" and "counter-revolutionaries" in the pay of its foes in the United States and often in search of a ticket out of Cuba as political refugees.

Havana rejects the word "dissident," saying there is no repression of free speech in Cuba, only legitimate punishment of "counter-revolutionary criminals."

Prior to Thursday's reported convictions, several other independent journalists were also being held in Cuban jails. Press rights groups around the world have appealed unsuccessfully on their behalf to Castro.

One of those groups, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists, last week included Castro on its list of those it deems "The Top 10 Enemies of the Press." Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic headed that list.

Reuters contributed to this report.

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